


hostage-smoshtage, mj's on the job

by bstarship



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Awesome Michelle Jones, BAMF Michelle Jones, Gen, Hostage Situations, Non-Graphic Violence, Peter Parker Has a Crush, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Protective Peter Parker, Worried Ned Leeds, just your average day for the midtown trio, mj probably listens to true crime podcasts, ned doesn't want to die, not-BAMF peter parker, peter just wants a grilled cheese, sorry kid, this is MJ's moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26228734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bstarship/pseuds/bstarship
Summary: Ned knocks his knee against Peter’s, but he doesn’t say anything. All he shares is a look—an “are you going to do anything?” look that makes Peter’s anxiety rise. That’s the thing. He can’t do anything. If he had the suit, there would be no discreet way to change into it without speculation. With a shake of the head, Peter realizes that he has doomed them all.He knows better. He understands that if people get hurt, it’s not his fault. But he can’t go a day without feeling like it always will be. He spends each minute of each day wondering if they would all be better off without him. If he had done something different on that planet, would Tony still be alive? Peter can't wrap his mind around it. His job is to save people, and right now, he can’t.orAlso known as the night MJ saves their asses and makes John Mulaney proud.
Relationships: Michelle Jones & Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 74





	hostage-smoshtage, mj's on the job

**Author's Note:**

> happy birthday zendaya. or belated. idk when i'm posting this. anyway <3
> 
> this isn't irondad fluff for once

Most days, Peter would curb the idea of hanging out with friends after school while Mr. Delmar pretends to be relatable and hip to _los_ _jóvenes_ these days. As tempting as extra pickles on sandwiches and late-night D&D campaigns are, Peter has a responsibility to the city—well, _borough_ , more like it, as he still holds little jurisdiction in Brooklyn and beyond. The police precincts that nudge Astoria don’t quite like the spandexed hero swinging around and doing their jobs for them. Since the blip, he doesn’t mind it all that much. Spider-Man feels like less of a passion and more like an obligation. And May has yet to berate him for not finding a minimum wage job on the side. 

Once spring hits, Peter’s morals shift. Friendships and Spider-Man are on separate wavelengths. His afternoons aren’t spent high above the skyline. Instead, he would find himself wandering the train tracks in Forest Park with MJ and Ned. Strangely enough, neither of them noticed Peter’s ears visibly perk each time a police siren rang out. That was before May begged them to pick a new place to hang after a body was found on the east side. The triple threat friends settled for a diner off of Atlantic Avenue where they would play “What’s New Pussycat?” until they were officially banned from the premises. 

As it turns out, one dead body and a John Mulaney bit are the least of their worries. 

“Not to freak you guys out—” MJ begins at three o’clock that afternoon. School had only let out fifteen minutes ago, and the three of them were secretly glad that Decathlon practice had been canceled due to an unfortunate beehive in the gymnasium and Mr. Harrington’s swollen face. “—but the SATs are in three weeks.”

“Totally not freaked out,” Peter says. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” 

“Do you think Cornell will care if I just don’t take it?” Ned asks with a small grimace. He adjusts his backpack and keeps his shoulders hunched as they walk down the street. 

“Cornell?” Peter raises a brow at his friend. “What happened to wanting to go to Harvard?”

“Oh, it’s still on the list,” Ned says and smiles. “I just know that they _will_ care.”

“Every Ivy League is corrupt and doesn’t care about you,” MJ interjects, deadbeat tone and all as she walks in step with them despite her long legs. “All they care about is money and whether or not their endowments can make their administrators richer. Which they do. Practical millionaires run a campus full of undergrads who are less than guaranteed to make a tenth of the provost’s base pay. It’s all too simple. College is pointless anyway.” 

A beat of silence follows her short monologue, and Peter and Ned share an uncertain glance before carrying on the conversation.

“You just want me to go to Harvard cos’ you’re going to MIT,” Ned says a moment later.

“Not true.”

“You’re going to MIT?” MJ adds. She almost sounds dejected as she says it. 

Peter gives a small shrug, mostly because he’s unsure of how to answer. MIT used to be a pipe dream, but then Spider-Man was an all-too consuming factor in his life. He didn’t think about college for the longest time. Once Tony came into the picture, he shed a little more light on the benefits. He promised Peter that there would be a place for him at his alma mater. So, the pipe dream became a real dream, and he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about it since. 

“Maybe,” he says instead. “I don’t know. If I can afford it, I guess.” 

MJ twists her lips, but she doesn’t reply. She keeps her eyes on Peter before Ned speaks up.

“What if we all end up in Boston?” he says, bobbing excitedly he walks. “We could get an apartment together, get a dog—or a cat, but I know you’re allergic, Peter—or maybe we just get a fish!”

“Harvard and MIT are in Cambridge, doofus,” MJ says. 

“Close enough.”

“Well, to claim that we’ll end up in Boston just means that—” 

“So, I was thinking about changing my order today,” Peter says, involving himself in the discussion only to change the subject entirely. It’s a force of habit, if he’s honest. No matter the size of the argument, his anxiety rises, and the need to alter the conversation overwhelms. So, he keeps his position as Switzerland and reroutes his friends. “Instead of a cheeseburger, I might go for the grilled cheese. The _four cheese_ grilled cheese. Provolone, American, and… two more cheeses. And I like it when they put those toothpicks on the top to keep the sandwich together. Plus, May’s cutting out red meat from her diet and I think I wanna try it with her.” 

“Slow down, Parker,” MJ mumbles dryly. “A real rebel you are. What’s next? You’ll shave your head?” 

“Why—do you think it’ll look good?” 

“I never said that.”

“Yeah, but you _implied_ —”

“Guys, look,” Ned says, pointing his finger. “Atlantic’s going out of business.”

Peter follows his friend’s finger across the street to where their frequented diner sits, and in one of the windows, Ned’s statement sits in a flashy font. The diner has been a family favorite since Peter can remember, and although Ben’s death paused their visitations, Peter found a new solace in the place after the blip. After Tony’s death. 

He wishes he was shocked at the news. He wishes he could pretend it meant nothing to him. But, these days, it seems that everything Peter loves always comes to an end. 

“How?” MJ asks and folds her arms. “It’s been here longer than any of us have.”

Peter wants to answer, but Ned does it for him. 

“No one can afford anything anymore, I guess,” Ned says. “Ma can’t even afford to run her jewelry business. This sucks. Where else am I gonna get a bowl of cottage cheese at eleven PM at night?”

“Your house.”

“Yeah, but it’s not the same.”

Peter doesn’t speak up again for another few minutes. They’re seated in their usual booth, tight against a sea of other tables and chairs with the bar to their right. MJ messes with the lousy jukebox while Peter stares at a plastic swordfish above his head. Ned reads off the menu as if he doesn’t have his usual order memorized. All the while, something feels off. It feels wrong. And Peter can’t place it. He excuses the feeling quickly as he glances over at the going-out-of-business sign, and a knot forms in his stomach. 

He wishes he knew what to talk about, especially in front of MJ. Ned can hear about Spider-Man all day long, but with MJ, Peter doesn’t want to open up about it yet. He doesn’t want to unload his emotional and vigilante-related baggage. There are times when he looks at her—he _really_ looks at her—and he notices things that he has never seen before. He notices how she reacts when she reads, smiles and frowns tugging on her lips whenever she’s invested in a chapter. He notices how she means every word she says, but when she doesn’t, her confidence dwindles. He notices the lilt to her laugh when she finds his humor amusing for once. And he thinks that she notices him, too.

Without Spider-Man, she only sees him as Peter. He wants to keep it that way for a little while longer. 

“This thing isn’t accepting my quarter,” MJ says with a small grunt before hitting the top of the table jukebox. As fast as the annoyance comes, it fades with a sigh. Her shoulder brushes Peter’s as she settles back into the booth. “They probably unplugged them all just cos’ of us.” 

“I think they were just tired of hearing Tom Jones,” Peter tells her. He picks a fry from the basket in front of them, stomach growling for his four-cheese sandwich while he uses their appetizer as a placeholder. The abundance of Old Bay seasoning leaves his tongue feeling gritty. 

Ned, on the opposite side of the table by himself, snorts out a chuckle. “I bet they turn them right back on when we leave.”

“They were on when you and I were here last.”

MJ furrows her brow. “So, it’s just because of me? That’s discrimination,” she says, and then she turns her body toward Peter. “Wait, you were here without me?” 

Ned’s eyes widen, mouth drawing open to find an excuse, but his gaze is locked over Peter’s shoulder. And Peter knows, by the feeling prickling up his spine, that something is about to happen. Nevertheless, it doesn’t prepare him from the eardrum rupturing shot that echoes through the room. Shrieks, gasps, and screams follow, yet he can’t make a sound. 

“I’m here for ya, Bill!” calls a gruff voice from the entrance. 

A hand falls onto Peter’s—MJ’s hand—but he doesn’t react to it. His torso twists, eyes meeting the figure of a man with a shotgun propped on his waist, barrel toward the ceiling where a hole sits fresh from a gunshot. He has that look to him—a determined look. One that so many have shared. No fear, just anger. 

Peter is seconds away from rising to his feet when MJ tugs on his arm. She crouches down low, torso below the table with her elbows resting on the leather booth. With her eyebrows drawn in, eyes wide and watery, he realizes that he hasn’t seen her so scared before. He hasn’t seen her show any similar emotion, and a feeling builds in his stomach. He wants to make sure that he never sees that expression ever again. 

Ned is below the table, too. It takes MJ pulling at Peter’s arm for him to tear out of his trance and see that other patrons have done the same as well. No one knows what might happen. The gunshot still rings in their ears.

“Someone wanna tell me where the hell Bill is?” the guy asks, and there’s a slight hint of humor in his tone. Like he’s amused. He’s unfazed by the fear spreading through the diner—or he thrives off of it. “Cos’ I got a nice AR-15 that would love to talk to him.” 

Peter is too busy avoiding gum beneath the table to notice that no one answers the man. Another frustrated shot carries through the diner, and tears burn in Peter’s eyes. 

“We’re gonna die,” Ned whispers.

MJ kicks his foot to shut him up.

There aren’t more than a dozen customers in the room, and the waitstaff has shielded themselves behind the bar with their hands up. Although Peter can no longer see the man at the door, he has a feeling that they won’t be allowed to leave once things get dicey. All the while, his head is spinning. Nothing feels concrete, and he feels hopeless. 

All that’s left in the silence is the dying hiss of a cooktop from the kitchen.

The man with the gun laughs. It makes Peter’s blood run cold. “You really wanna make this hard on me, huh?” the man asks, and then the amusement shuts off. Bold and broken, he shouts, “if none of you tell me where the _hell_ Bill is, I’m gonna burn this place to the ground!”

“He needs to get better threats,” MJ mutters close to Peter’s ear, and a shiver runs down his spine.

Ned knocks his knee against Peter’s, but he doesn’t say anything. All he shares is a look—an _“are you going to do anything?”_ look that makes Peter’s anxiety rise. That’s the thing. He can’t do anything. If he had the suit, there would be no discreet way to change into it without speculation. With a shake of the head, Peter realizes that he has doomed them all. 

He knows better. He understands that if people get hurt, it’s not his fault. But he can’t go a day without feeling like it always will be. He spends each minute of each day wondering if they would all be better off without him. If he had done something different on that planet, would Tony still be alive? Peter can't wrap his mind around it. His job is to save people, and right now, he _can’t._

“Bill isn’t here,” a waiter answers, voice wavering. “He’s—he’s not here.”

The man chuckles again. “Course he ain’t. Cos’ he’s never fuckin’ here. Never saw the shitshow he’s been running for the past twenty years. Never saw us breaking our backs so he could get a little richer. Then suddenly we’re all blipped from existence, come back five years later to no job, no home, no income, and that son-of-a-bitch isn’t even _here._ ”

Peter furrows his brows as he listens. He has heard these arguments before. The blip had turned political. Business owners and corporations were deemed evil destructions to society—as if some already weren’t. Landlords were assaulted, government buildings defaced, and protesters lined the streets. No one had a job. No one had a place to live. It took him and May three months to get back on their feet even with the Stark estate’s help. Others weren’t so lucky. 

“Well,” the man continues, “you can either call that asshole, tell him I wanna have a few words, or we can handle this the hard way. Whichever you prefer, _sir_.”

There’s a bite in the man’s tone that infuriates Peter, but no matter how many times his fist clench in frustration, it doesn’t change the fact that there’s nothing he can do. He can’t risk the lives of others to take down this guy and expose himself as Spider-Man. 

But he can’t push down the guilt. He can’t tear himself free of the nagging thoughts, and it doesn’t help when Ned shoots pleading glares his way.

“We have to figure out a plan,” Ned whispers. “Peter?”

“What’re you lookin’ at me for?” Peter asks, attempting to calm his nerves. “You want me to take down a guy with a gun?”

Peter has taken down many guys with guns before. He can count the number of times on his fingers and toes and so on. 

“We seriously should’ve stayed in Forest Park with that dead body,” MJ says, chuckling nervously before there’s a harsh clatter up at the front. Her torso jolts at the sound.

The man’s voice booms. “Did you hear me, toe-brain? I said _call him_. None of you assholes are leaving til’ I get my way.”

“Well,” MJ begins lowly, “I can finally say I’ve been in a hostage situation.”

Ned quirks a brow. “Finally?” 

“What? You never think about what you’d do in a situation like this?” 

“No.”

“Hm. Weird.” 

Peter clenches his jaw. “ _Guys_ ,” he seethes. “Shut up.” 

“Do you think if we play ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ seven times that we’ll drive him out?” Ned asks. 

“ _Shut_ _up_.”

The passing minutes are hard to predict. The man with the gun has paced around the diner three times, clicking his tongue at each patron he sees. Peter can see through his demeanor now. The threatening façade allows little weakness to seep through, but the man isn’t confident in himself. MJ speaks of it first. From beneath the table, she can see his fingers tremble on the trigger. A shot hasn’t been fired since he first entered the place. Who knows if he would fire one at a person? But no one wants to test the theory.

“What’d’ya think?” the man asks aloud. “When Bill gets here, should I blow his brains out or talk to him civilly while you guys cower in fear?” He laughs at his words. “So pathetic—each and every one of you. Too cowardly to come out and face me. You’d be kissing bullets anyway.”

“He talks too much,” MJ mumbles, resting her head on Peter’s shoulder.

Peter—as his heart stammers rapidly in his chest—stares over at Ned with wide, panicked eyes. Their nonverbal conversation _("Dude, is this happening right now?” “She’s totally into you.” “I think I’m gonna have a heart attack.”)_ carries on as MJ sighs and picks her head back up again. 

“You just know that his bark is worse than his bite,” she says. “And his bark is like a small terrier’s. So, like a yap. He’s just yapping at us.” 

“Yeah, but he’s got a gun,” Ned replies, quiet yet sharp. 

MJ lets out a huff. “He’s barely used it.” 

“If we keep talking, then you’re gonna have to revoke that statement,” Peter mentions. He presses his knees to his chest. “I didn’t even get my grilled cheese.” 

“Too bad Flash’s good bud _Spider-Man_ isn’t here to save the day,” MJ says, peeking around the booth for a brief moment. “We’d already be home by now.” 

“Yeah—” Ned looks at Peter. “Too bad.”

Peter sinks back against the leather. His guilt has festered to unreasonable levels, and the longer they sit there waiting for this _Bill_ to show up, the more guilt he feels. No one has been hurt to his knowledge, but it doesn’t mean it won’t happen eventually. All he can do is nothing. 

He hears the sirens first, weak and far in the distance until they overwhelm his senses. The man throws something—a chair most likely—and a few customers shriek at the sound. 

“You called the cops on me, huh?” he asks. “Okay. Which one of you was it? You’ll be the first to go.”

Peter can hear the slamming of car doors. He can hear each individual footstep make their way up the stairs to the front door, and just as the bell chimes, a woman lets out a small scream. 

“Come any closer and I’ll shoot ‘er!” the man yells at—what Peter assumes to be—the police officers. “I’ll shoot ‘em all. You better get me Bill, that son-of-a-bitch, or I’ll shoot her dead.” 

Nausea rises in Peter. He shuts his eyes tight to mask the pain, to wish the day away so he can wake up in his bed and start all over again. He can’t save anyone. He can’t do anything. He should be able to do something. _Why can’t he think of something to do?_ Peter grips at his hair. 

“You get me Bill,” the man says, voice closer. “Get the hell outta here and get me Bill.”

“Sir—” an officer begins.

“Get me Bill!” 

The woman lets out another cry, and Peter tries not to imagine her fear. He tries not to imagine the weapon pressed to her temple while tears stream down her face. He tries not to imagine what could have been if Spider-Man was still around. 

“To think we could’ve found a dead body instead of this,” MJ whispers. 

“Not to be gruesome,” Ned says, “but we might still get the dead body.” 

Peter thinks he may throw up.

“Put the gun down,” an officer tells the man, “and let her go.”

MJ laughs quietly. “Yeah. Like that’s gonna work.”

What haunts Peter the most isn’t the fact that he can’t do anything but the fact that he can’t see anything. He hears the woman’s cries, hears the man’s violent threats, hears the officers fail to de-escalate with their guns most likely pointed in the man’s face. And he hears every single unsteady heartbeat in the room. If he shuts his eyes tight enough, he can imagine that he hears their thoughts, too. 

The man’s voice is even closer to them as he says, “I ain’t doing anything ‘til I see Bill. He ruined my life, I’m gonna ruin his.”

MJ nudges Peter’s shoulder. When he glances over, he sees two pairs of shoes right beside their table. The man and the other woman’s. MJ’s smirk is the next thing Peter sees. A second later, she leans out from the booth and slowly unknots the man’s shoelaces. And Peter has to sit there, panicked and horrified while Ned kicks at him to do something. But he can’t. He can’t do anything. What if MJ takes the cost of his actions? He would never be able to live with himself. 

“I’ll bet none of you knew what it was like,” the man continues, unaware of the teenager untying his laces below, “to wake up after five-fuckin’-years to no home, no job.”

Peter frowns. Everyone knows. But no one threatens an entire diner full of strangers because of one bad boss. 

“To have _Bill_ —a sack of shit and a goddamn liar—tell you to take a hike,” the man says, “all cos’ you want your job back but he doesn’t have room for you. So you live under a highway for three months in the snow with the other half of New York that can’t find a fuckin’ place to live. And you think I’m overreacting? You think I’m being unfair?” 

“MJ,” Peter whispers. “Stop.”

She only ignores him.

“You think _I’m_ being unfair?” yells the man as he drops the rifle down to his side. It misses MJ’s head by a hair. “You pigs see a man like me and think I’m crazy, but you’re enabling this! It’s you. It’s all of you. Allowing thieves like Bill to run a business and take away jobs that were rightfully ours. You’re all sheep. You’re goddamn sheep.”

MJ returns to Peter’s side with a satisfied smile, and the breath he was holding in releases from his lungs. 

“I tied his shoelaces together,” she says, shrugging. “I just think it’s funny.”

It happens like this: the police officers make their way toward the man in a hurry. From what Peter can see, the woman forces herself free as the man backs up to run away. And then, as if MJ had known it all along, he trips over the tied shoelaces and falls to the floor, hitting his head against the bar countertop in the process. He’s knocked out in time for the police to surround him and take him into custody. 

Peter, in all honesty, feels like he has blinked the whole afternoon away. 

By six o’clock in the evening, he can barely breathe on the walk home. MJ seems unfazed by the events that occurred in the diner. Ned can’t speak. The three of them haven’t uttered a single word since they left their basket of unfinished fries on that diner table. 

“So, you have to admit,” MJ begins after a minute, “that was pretty badass.” 

“Yeah.” Ned’s voice shakes. “Badass.”

“Oh, c’mon. We’re all alive. That was badass, right, Peter?”

He turns his head in her direction, heartrate increasing at the sound of his name as he nods a few times. His mind still reels with guilt. “Y-yeah. Just glad no one got hurt.” 

The corner of MJ’s lips twitches upward. “Yeah. Me too.” 

“Can we pick a new place to eat?” Ned asks and hugs his arms tight to his body. “Or just never go out to eat ever again? I have cottage cheese at my place anyway.”

“We can—” MJ keeps her eyes on Peter as they walk. “—but where else are we gonna get that grilled cheese that Peter can’t live without?” 

They drop off Ned at his place. He doesn’t want to hang out anymore, and Peter doesn’t blame him. All he wants to do is crawl into bed and dream about the days when Spider-Man and Tony were the only two things he worried about. He doesn’t have Tony anymore, and he barely has Spider-Man, too. These days, it doesn’t feel like there’s much left.

MJ walks next to Peter in silence. She has never been one for many words, but he likes it when she speaks. Her sense of humor always makes him feel a little better even on his worst days. Right now, however, he can tell that she doesn’t know what to say. 

“It really was badass,” he tells her, stuffing his hands into his jean pockets. “Unexpected, but badass.”

MJ chuckles. “Yeah. I didn’t really think it would do anything. Kinda cool that I single-handedly took down a guy with a gun only by his shoelaces. Do you think colleges would like that?

“I thought you didn’t wanna go to college.”

“Not true,” she says with a shrug. “I just said that they’re overrated. Which they are. But my mom wants me to go, so—” She shrugs once again. “I’ll probably go. Columbia maybe. Harvard’s pretentious but you nerds are kinda cool I guess, so it’d be fun to be there. With you. N-not like _you_ specifically but—”

“Yeah, it would be fun,” Peter says, smiling. He’s thankful that the sun has set long ago so she wouldn’t see the pink in his cheeks. 

“Oh—uh, this is me.” MJ stops on the sidewalk and points to the building to their right. It’s only three blocks down from where Peter lives. “You think my heroic act of bravery is gonna make the front page of the Chronicle?”

Peter chuckles. “I think our picture is gonna be above the fold.”

“Did they really have to take it when Ned was hugging me?”

Their short laughter dies down quickly, smiles never faltering while the heat in Peter’s palms builds in his pockets. He doesn’t know where to go from here. He wants to thank her. He wants to tell her that he sees her. He wants to tell her that everything she says is important to him. But he can’t find the right words. 

Instead, he says, “well, at least we didn’t have to see a dead body today.”

MJ cracks a smile. “Bummer. Would’ve been cool.”

He smiles, too.

“Night, Parker.”

“Goodnight, Jones.”


End file.
